


Presentation

by toushindai (WallofIllusion)



Category: Baccano!
Genre: F/F, Gender Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-07
Updated: 2015-05-07
Packaged: 2018-03-29 09:48:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3891769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WallofIllusion/pseuds/toushindai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you like binding yourself up like that?”<br/>“I have to. They don’t make these uniforms for a woman.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Presentation

**Author's Note:**

> hello yes I accidentally ship _so much_

With deft hands, Lucrezia unwound the strips of cloth that allowed Carla to fit into her uniform, and Carla took her first unencumbered breath since daybreak. Lucrezia rubbed her breastbone thoughtfully.

“Do the wrappings hurt, darling?”

Carla hesitated, momentarily stymied. It was a natural enough question, but she was surprised to hear her mistress ask it.

“Sometimes,” she confessed after a moment. “If I wear them for too long.”

“Today?”

“A li—ttle,” Carla answered, catching her breath mid-word because as soon as she’d started to answer Lucrezia had cupped her breast, ever so gently. “Th-that helps.” Even if it hadn’t, she may have been inclined to ignore the pain for the sake of Lucrezia’s caresses. She slipped her fingers between the strands of her mistress’s hair, implying the request for a kiss, and Lucrezia didn’t hesitate to oblige.

When they pulled back, Lucrezia searched Carla’s eyes. “You don’t mind my asking, do you? I’ve simply been so curious.”

Carla blushed to know that Lucrezia had spared an idle thought for Carla’s sake. She shook her head: how could she mind?

And then Lucrezia’s hands were on her chest again, stroking and squeezing and coaxing away the pain of having been wrapped so tightly. For a time, all Carla had to do was lean back in her mistress’s wide bed and take the full breaths she could never get during the day.

Just as she found herself completely relaxed, Lucrezia’s hands stilled and she spoke again.

“Do you like wrapping yourself up like that?”

Again, she watched Carla’s face carefully as if to ascertain that she hadn’t overstepped—and Carla wondered if she was able to keep her own expression blank enough to let her know that she had not.

It was far from the first time she’d been asked such a question.

And Lucrezia wasn’t asking it cruelly, like others had, but that didn’t make the answer any simpler.

What words were there to explain that on some days—today had been one of them—it felt bewilderingly right to see her chest pressed as flat as a man’s, but other days it felt like a betrayal? She didn’t even know what was being betrayed, only that she hated to catch glimpses of herself or even look down her own body on those days.

When she’d first donned her uniform, she’d thought—something imprecise, something she could hardly remember now. That if she had no choice but to bind her chest every day, it would take away some of the fluctuation and uncertainty. It hadn’t. The lack of choice had only made her angry, at herself, at the uniform, at anyone who looked at her askance for her form of dress. (Well, she would have been angry at the latter regardless.)

As Lucrezia tilted her head and intertwined the fingers of one hand with Carla’s, Carla finally answered her question by shrugging. “I have to,” she answered, which was undeniable. “They don’t make these uniforms for a woman.”

“Mm,” Lucrezia agreed; then she pressed closer and granted Carla another kiss and they didn’t need to speak again for quite some time.

*

A week later.

Carla returned to her bedroom to find a parcel on her bed, wrapped in thin paper and tied with a ribbon. Atop it sat a card bearing only a beautifully calligraphed _L_ and smelling faintly of peach. Carla felt her entire body flush and had to sit down rather suddenly.

(Eventually, she was sure, she would stop reacting to her mistress’s capricious kindness so strongly, but for now it made her dizzy every time.)

Her fingers trembling, she untied the ribbon and pushed the paper aside and caught a glimpse of red and white and gold.

A uniform.

And she caught her breath with a sudden hope, a sudden flight of fantasy. Hardly aware of the action, she unbuttoned her jacket and the white shirt beneath it and shed them both at once and—hesitated.

Strips of cloth, pinned tightly in place, still pressed her breasts flat. Today was a day that she wished they didn’t, and it made her theory, her wild hope, even more tantalizing. But if she unbound herself now and found her hopes dashed—could she bear that, tonight?

She sat there for long minutes, tracing the gold piping on the new uniform. Her chest hurt. Because of the bindings, because of the _idea_ of the bindings, because of hope. But mostly because of the bindings; she had been wearing them for too long. They needed to come off. So, moving too quickly to allow herself to think, she unpinned the cloth and let it fall into her lap and then slipped into the new white shirt and by the time she reached the fourth button from the bottom there were tears of relief and joy brimming in her eyes.

It _fit_.

*

Sometimes Lucrezia de Dormentaire was coy.

A tease, some people might even say. (Not Carla, of course, but some people.)

But the next morning, when Carla reported for duty in her new uniform, her head held high, joy shone openly on Lucrezia’s face. She ran her eyes down Carla’s body and nodded in satisfaction.

“You look lovely, Carla,” she said.

At those words, even the always-stoic Carla couldn’t hide the smile that pulled at her lips.

“Thank you, Lady Lucrezia.” 


End file.
